I don't want to use my air conditioning

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

I live in an apartment with tall ceilings and really tall windows. There’s also a really old, really big tree in front that shields my building from all the morning sun.

In the morning, when I leave for work, I close all the windows and all the shades. Then when I get home at night, I open them all up and let the cool night air in. If it’s particularly hot, I put a box fan in my bedroom window to help draw in more cool night air, then take it out when I get in bed. I also have ceiling fans that keep the place comfortable.

With this setup, I get to enjoy the refreshing night air while I sleep, then hear all the birds outside when I wake.

But the heat is coming, and I really have nothing going on this weekend, so I’m stuck leaving the windows open during the worst of it, sacrificing all that cool night air. By afternoon yesterday, the place was a furnace. I had the ceiling fan over my couch on high, with the little chain whirling about. I took a nap and woke covered in sweat.

It all cooled off nicely by 10pm last night. And now, not quite 10am and it’s still nice; I have a cool breeze coming through the window, I can hear the birds singing. Pretty relaxing, really.

But today and tomorrow are supposed to be HOT. I gotta either close this place up and leave for today to hold in the cold from last night, or be stuck with an even hotter furnace than yesterday.

So, do I lug my window air conditioning unit out of my creepy attic and set it in the window in what will probably be a profanity laden tirade due to the obnoxiously awkward shape and weight of the thing, or do I close this place up stat and leave for the day and hold all the cool in?

I guess I’m fortunate that that’s my dilemma for today.

Anyone else here loathe having to resort to air conditioning?

2

I hate having to turn the air on, but we have central air, so there’s no lugging and cussing involved. Temps dropped to the 60s overnight and I opened the house, but it’s already ridiculously humid, so I’ve closed up and turned the air back on. If it cools this evening, I’ll open everything again.

We have ceiling fans in all the bedrooms, plus in the kitchen and family room. We’ve set up a tower fan in the living room (ceiling fan to be installed this fall) and while we have a lot of trees around the house, at high noon, the sun bakes down on the roof. There’s a thermostatically controlled attic fan that helps, and we dumped a bunch of insulation up there. Still, Maryland can be brutally humid, and we have gotten triple-digit temps (not this year so far, but it happens.) I grew up in a house without a/c and I suppose I could get used to it again if I had to, but I don’t wanna!!

3

I’ve been lucky this year with lack of humidity. My car read 90 yesterday, and it was definitely hot, but it wasn’t sticky.

Today feels a bit more humid, but still not bad.

I’ll definitely cave if it gets sticky.

4

After the place cools down at night, try leaving the windows closed during the day, even during the weekend when you are there. I think it would be much nicer than opening them to the hot air. You could also use a fan at the same time, if you want. Then you can open them again at night when it will be cooler.

5

After a couple of weeks of record heat, we looked into having a split-unit air conditioner installed in the house. It turns out that it would cost $2,000 to install a new meter base, and a circuit breaker box to replace the fusebox. Then we’d have to get the a/c unit from the contractor, which is much more than buying one ourself from Home Depot. Then they’d have to run the dedicated circuit and install the unit. It would have cost $5,000. So I bought a portable a/c for $460 (including tax and shipping). Since most windows in this house don’t open, we had to put it in the front bedroom and use a fan to direct the cool air into the front rooms of the house.

Naturally, as soon as the portable unit came, the weather became cooler. It might hit 80 next Sunday, but the 10-day forecast suggests we won’t be needing refrigerated air.

6

Seriously, bro? Haha, good timing! I just wrote a recent post about a house without AC. I totally agree with you.

7

Why are people so reluctant to use air conditioning? If you are hot, turn on the damn thing. If you’re not hot, don’t turn it on. But please, quit whining about using it.

8

I guess it’s currently hip not to use your A/C?

Mine is always on and ready to go as soon as that thermostat hits 72. Same with the heat that clicks on when the thermostat reads 67.

9

A/C is what separates us from the beasts. I love my central air and won’t live without it again. I’ve never heard of taking window units out of the windows for the season. Once they were in, in they stayed until they died.

10

I realize that HVAC is not necessary for life. But it’s what makes life worth living.

11

Lots of people die in heat waves every summer. Especially in backwards places like France where they still haven’t heard of the refrigerant cycle.

12

Looks more like they don’t want to install it in this heat. Which…well, forethought, man. Forethought woulda helped.

13

We don’t have AC, since here in the Bay Area you really need it only a few days a year.
We do have tons of floor and ceiling fans, and run them as soon as the outside temperature gets lower than the inside temperature, and close up in the morning when the reverse happens. Usually works pretty well. Only problem is when you have heat a few days in a row so the attic heats up. And we have basically no humidity.

When we lived in NJ and Louisiana we damn well had central air.

14

I would *LOVE *to have A/C. I’ve got a fucking swamp cooler, which does the job, but is such a major maintenance pain in the ass, year round. Scale, new pads, worn belts, burned motors, rust, stink, winterization -you name it. A/C? Flip a switch twice a year.

Bring it on!

15

Where I live A/C is as close to a necessity as one can get - high temps in the mid 90’s and humidity in the mid 80’s (or higher). Night time lows in the mid-to-high 70’s, so it never really cools off in the house. It verges on life threatening, and often crosses the verge for elderly and infants.

16

I’m with you, I use my air con, maybe 10-14 days of the years. It gets wicked hot and humid but I mostly do as you. Close it up when it’s hot, open it up wide when it cools. Mine is a century home with high ceilings and good cross ventilation, on a well treed street, all of which helps.

But I too don’t really fancy the a/c being on. I think it’s just noise to distract from the heat sometimes. It’s the noise I don’t like. Fans bother me too, even on low. For a while is okay, but hours in a row is too much, I need to shut it off and enjoy the quiet often over a few hours. If the fans on over night cause it’s really hot I usually wake up and shut it off at some point.

17

I never use my A/C, even though we get runs of 110 days now and then. Apparently I’m rather heat tolerant – even though it gets uncomfortable, it’s nothing like traumatic for me. Cold weather, OTOH, I find unbearably uncomfortable.

Turning on the A/C definitely up-sizes my electric bill.

In my current apartment, being all-electric, heating it in the winter up-sizes my electric bill too. It wasn’t so bad when I lived in an apartment with gas heating.

18

Well, I ended up putting it in a few minutes ago.

I now hear the damn thing making a racket in the window. I can picture my electric meter just spinning and spinning with all that damn noise.

And outside the leaves are moving with the wind. I should really open the window.

Actually, what I should really do is start a thread whining about loud air-conditioning units.

19

I rather not use my A/C b/c it run up my bill but when it is humid out I run it part of the day when I am cooking and use a fan when I am done cooking.
I put a fan on the floor for my dog , it feel like having his head out the car window . I do run it on very hot night humid night .

20

Air conditioning is a gift from God!:smiley:

Turn it on.

My grandmother, born in 1904 and dying in 2012, didn’t believe in the good old days. She loved modern conveniences, especially air conditioning. She and my grandfather lived through the heat of the 1930’s, and didn’t think there was anything “good” about it.